Why Microsoft May Never Build A Data Centre In Nigeria

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| By Jonah Nwokpoku

inside Microsoft's data centre - (Photo Credit: CNET).

Nobody is going to come to Nigeria because it has 180 million people and the country is not ready to invest in electricity.

So, let me attempt to first explain what cloud computing is. Let’s say you own a factory that produces shoes. Certainly, you will need a warehouse to keep the shoes, pending when suppliers will come to buy them.

Imagine now that you produce more shoes than your warehouse can carry, what do you do? You either build another warehouse or rent one more.

Imagine your capacity then grows, and the two warehouses can no longer accommodate all produced shoes. What do you do? You either rent another warehouse or build another.

But imagine that you have someone who tells you, don’t worry about the quantity of shoes you produce. You can produce as many shoes as you want, and I can warehouse them for you at a fee for as long as you want.

The higher the quantity of shoes, the higher the amount and the lesser the quantity, the lesser fee you pay.

But you have no need to keep paying if you have no more shoes to warehouse.

So, you just focus on producing shoes.

That is what is cloud computing looks like.

Now, Microsoft is well ahead in cloud computing. And to make their cloud computing work successfully, they have data centres across the world, tons of them.

But they don’t have in Africa’s largest economy – Nigeria. In fact, the only data centre the company has in Africa is in South Africa.

At the ongoing Social Media Week in Lagos, the Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft in Nigeria, Mr. Hakeem Adeniji-Adele explained why.

Mr. Adeniji-Adele spoke during a panel discussion on “The Role of Technology on Delivering Investment Solutions”.

He said: “Microsoft spends a billion dollars on security alone. To have a properly equipped data centre in Nigeria, the kind of Microsoft standard, you are talking about two independent power sources… that is the minimum. You have to cool, so it will cost a lot of money.

“Why don’t you just host it in another country with electricity and good infrastructure. And you can host your services there and deliver the services to Nigeria. why are we being emotional about it?”

According to him, the decision to have a Microsoft data centre in Nigeria is an economic one.

“Microsoft is a listed company, and just like any other listed company, survives on profit margin. Nobody is going to come to Nigeria because it has 180 million people and the country is not ready to invest in electricity,” he said.

He explained that the company had spoken to the authorities including Ministers and the Presidency about it and that size of population alone wasn’t going to make Microsoft make that kind of investment in Nigeria.

He said: “The truth is, we have come in, we have looked at it, spoken to the Ministers and the Presidency and when we asked them, why do they want this? They said because we have 180 million people. (Obvioulsy that isn’t satisfactory, and Microsoft Cloud isn’t going to come here based on that alone.)